


where the heart is

by shirasu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23865037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirasu/pseuds/shirasu
Summary: In downtown Osaka, there’s an apartment that sits high above the bustling streets and glittering lights. It’s sparsely furnished, a pantry stacked with only the most basic amenities and a fridge filled with nothing but sports drinks and instant curry packets.There’s no way Atsumu can consider this place home, not when the days are spent elsewhere and the nights are cold and dark and lonely.No—Home is a hundred and fifty kilometers away, in a small house nestled along the sea.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 14
Kudos: 157





	where the heart is

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for 391

In downtown Osaka, there’s an apartment that sits high above the bustling streets and glittering lights. It’s sparsely furnished, a pantry stacked with only the most basic amenities and a fridge filled with nothing but sports drinks and instant curry packets.

There’s no way Atsumu can consider this place home, not when the days are spent elsewhere and the nights are cold and dark and lonely.

No—

Home is a hundred and fifty kilometers away, in a small house nestled along the sea.

It takes Atsumu about three and a half hours to get from Osaka to Toyooka. He makes no fewer than two transfers from the subway to a bus to the subway again, and by the time he gets to the farm, he’s _sweating_. He stares up at the sky, shielding his eyes from the August sun, and curses under his breath. In hindsight, he should’ve left later in the day, when the afternoon sun would be more forgiving than it is now.

He carefully makes his way through the paddies, picking his way past the plants to the house that sits like a beacon in the middle of it all.

Before he can raise his hand to knock, the door opens.

“Come in,” Kita says. “You must be exhausted.”

At first, there was resistance.

Kita’s grades were good enough to land him at a national university, so when he told the rest of the club what his plans were for after graduation, everyone balked.

The third-year advisors were even more flustered, their chances of having a club captain-turned-national university graduate slowly disappearing before their eyes. But Kita was stubborn, his dreams anchored to a plot of land his grandfather had left the family before he passed.

It made sense to Atsumu.

“I’m going to eat your food someday,” Atsumu said during graduation. “I’ll buy everything I see at the market with your name on it and it’s gonna be delicious.”

Kita only stared up at him before his eyes crinkled. “Why don’t you just come over instead if you want to eat my cooking?”

“Kita-saaaaan,” Atsumu wails, muffled through his mouthful of rice. Kita leans over and taps Atsumu’s chin. His touch is cool on Atsumu’s overheated skin, and really, what he would give to just nudge his face into Kita’s hand—

“You’re getting rice everywhere, close your mouth when you eat. Honestly,” Kita mutters, taking a sip of his tea.

Atsumu finishes the bowl in record time, leaning forward over the table when he’s done. There are a million questions he wants to ask, but the one on the tip of his tongue is: “How’d you know I was coming?”

“Osamu told me this morning.”

“ _What?_ ‘Samu, that bastard, I’m gonna wring his neck.”

Kita cocks his head to the side. “Why?”

“I was going to be a surprise!” Atsumu throws himself face-first on the table, sending chopsticks flying. “And now ‘Samu’s gone and ruined it all for me.”

“Well, you’re here now, aren’t you?” Kita smiles. “Isn’t that all that matters?”

Atsumu mutters something unintelligible into the wood before he looks back up at Kita. It’s been a few weeks since he’s been here— practice is grueling, after all— but Kita still looks good, all toned muscles and sunkissed skin. He looks better than the last time they met, but maybe Atsumu’s just biased. This type of work, this type of life, it suits him.

Their relationship has always been a little bit like this:

For as much as Atsumu likes to control the court, likes to feel the weight of the ball on his fingertips and the rush of adrenaline through his veins, there’s always been something else that he’s craved.

Someone to guide him, to lead him, to take his hand and to watch over him when no one else will.

Kita is willing to give him what he wants, and Atsumu’s going to take everything he can get.

By the time Atsumu’s done with his shower, scrubbing all the dirt and grime of the outside world off of him and emerging from the washroom squeaky-clean, Kita is curled up on the couch in the corner of his room, another cup of tea on the table next to him.

“How long are you going to be staying?” Kita asks when Atsumu flops down next to him, sprawling out until his head is in Kita’s lap and his feet dangle over the edge.

“Two days? I have to leave Monday morning, coach wants me back to do some drills before the Falcons game on Wednesday. We have a practice game with some other team this weekend, but I begged out of it.” Atsumu closes his eyes, feeling Kita’s cool hand smooth over his forehead.

“Why?”

“Aren’t you the one who always tells me not to overwork myself? Why _wouldn’t_ I want to come spend time with you instead of some stinky volleyball players?”

“You don’t mean that.” There’s a chuckle in Kita’s voice, and Atsumu chases the sound, layering it over all the other times he’s heard Kita laugh.

“‘Course I do.” Atsumu opens his eyes, and Kita’s face is so, so close. “There’s no one else I’d rather spend my weekends with.”

It’s an awkward angle, Atsumu leaning up and Kita craning his head down, but they manage to make it work. Kita tastes like green tea, and Atsumu sucks on his lip and curls a hand around his neck to bring him closer.

Kita pulls away first, his lips red and shiny and Atsumu thinks, more than a little proudly, _I did that_.

“Atsumu, stop,” Kita says because he does not whine, but Atsumu is convinced that if Kita were the whining type, he would be whining. Maybe that’s just his own feverish imagination. That’s alright. “It’s too hot.”

“But Kita-san, just one more,” Atsumu wheedles, playing with Kita’s hair, tracing his fingers down his neck. “Didn’t you miss me?”

Kita rolls his eyes, but he leans down obligingly all the same, and Atsumu knows that he’s won.

There are times Atsumu wishes, selfishly, that Kita had stayed somewhere closer to him, somewhere they could wake up every morning together. But he knows he’s making his own decisions, and Kita is, too. He looks happy.

They both are.

In downtown Osaka, there’s an apartment that sits high above the bustling streets and glittering lights. Sometimes, a man comes to pay a visit from hours away, hauling up vegetables and fruits and sacks of rice. There’s a fluffy new blanket in the closet and natto and fatty tuna in the fridge, and the nights are filled with quiet laughter.

Maybe this isn’t exactly what Atsumu had envisioned all those nights he’d spent staring up at the ceiling, willing himself to fall asleep instead of picturing a hazy future, but it’s alright. Home is where the heart is, and as long as Kita is here, it’ll be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you just have to feed yourself and the 20 other atsukita stans out there!!!! please do not speak to me abt the love language of Caring For One's Beloved because i will fall down and cry
> 
> disclaimer: kita’s farm being in toyooka exists in my imagination and was a product of many google searches which include “rice fields in japan” “rice production in japan” “distance from toyooka to osaka” and the msby bj home stadium being in osaka is based off of their irl counterpart, the panasonic panthers, being based in osaka
> 
> hope you enjoyed!!


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